McConnell: Layoffs a 'local' problem

In an interesting policy-political joust Sunday with CNN "State of the Union" host Candy Crowley, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stuck by his assertion that stopping federal funding to stave off local police, teacher and firefighter layoffs is the right thing to do - and that federal regulations are the country' top economic problem.

Last week, McConnell and fellow Republicans, along with a few Democrats scuttled a measure supported by President Barack Obama that would have pumped $35 billion to cash-starved localities.

"I'm sure Americans do -- I certainly do -- approve of firefighters and police," the Kentucky senator told Crowley -- leaving out teachers. "The question is whether the federal government ought to be raising taxes on 300,000 small businesses in order to send money down to bail out states for whom firefighters and police work -- they are local and state employees."

Crowley hit the minority leader, who famously declared his goal to make Obama a one-term president, with recent polling data (75 percent of the public backs Obama's plan to aid localities) and a survey of businesspeople by the Labor Department, who who blamed lagging economy on "poor demand" vs. onerous regulation by a 25-to-1 margin.

"Federal regulators are crawling all over the private sector keeping us from coming out of this recession," McConnell said.

"Are you focusing on the wrong problem?" she asked.

McConnell turned the question on Obama, declaring that the 2012 would be a referendum on the president, rather than a choice between his vision of government and the GOP's, saying the administration "got everything they wanted from Congress in the first two years," .

History doesn't quite bear that out. McConnell has used the filibuster rules to hamstring Obama more than any other legislative leader in recent history, forcing the Democrats to modify a more ambitious stimulus bill in early 2009 with help of three conservative members of the majority.

He has used the chamber's arcane procedures to hold up nominations to financial and environmental regulatory agencies, and has blocked energy and immigration initiatives that would have passed with a simple 50-vote majority.